Florida is now 15 billionaires away from passing New York, and New York's plan to stop it appears to be asking nicely and then maybe raising taxes on whoever's left.
Start with the scoreboard, because Wallet Walsh always starts with the scoreboard. According to Forbes data reported by Fox Business on Thursday, California has 255 billionaires, New York has 153, and Florida has 138. In 2022, Florida had 91. That's 47 new billionaires in about four years, or roughly one a month, which is a faster delivery schedule than most New Yorkers get from their landlord on a broken radiator.
A Palm Beach luxury real estate agent told Fox News Digital her brokerage has "seen more movement than ever before of billionaires coming to Florida," and she expects it to continue. Her explanation was not complicated: "I think the biggest thing is taxes." She also mentioned nightlife, schools and the Cleveland Clinic, but let's be honest. Nobody with nine zeros moves 1,200 miles for a hospital parking garage.
It's not just the yacht crowd. The Citizens Budget Commission found New York City lost roughly 114,000 more domestic residents than it gained in 2025. Gov. Kathy Hochul has publicly urged high-net-worth people to stay in or come back to New York, warning that losing them threatens funding for social programs. She has also admitted New York is "in competition with other states who have less of a tax burden." That's like a restaurant owner admitting the place across the street has food, and then raising his prices.
Because here's where it gets expensive. Just days before the election, Hochul, who had pledged no new taxes on high earners and businesses, gave a vague answer when asked whether she'd back Mayor Zohran Mamdani's tax-the-rich push. The New York Post put the two of them on its cover as "thick as thieves." Republican Bruce Blakeman called it a flip-flop.
So follow the money with me. New York's budget depends on a small number of very rich people paying a very large share of the taxes. Those people are leaving at a pace Florida can count by the month. The governor's response is to beg them to come back while declining to promise she won't charge them more for the privilege. That's not a tax policy. That's a breakup text that ends with "also you owe me rent."
And who covers the gap when the billionaire's Palm Beach closing goes through? Not the billionaire. He's already registered to vote in a state with no income tax. The gap lands on the dentist in Queens, the electrician in Buffalo, the two-income couple in Westchester who can't afford a jet but can afford, apparently, everything else New York thinks of.
Florida, for its part, didn't have to do anything clever. It just had to not be New York, and it's winning the billionaire count by default, like a team that advances because the other team's bus left for Texas.
The math is simple enough to fit on a moving box. Every billionaire who leaves takes his tax bill with him. Every tax hike to replace him gives the next one a reason to call the same Palm Beach agent. Fifteen to go.
The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is a comedy roast built on real reported events; jokes, exaggerations and fictional characters are not real news.
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